| Bowling For Meteors |
| Summary: | Mighty heroines Moon Maiden and Power Woman save Metropolis from a dangerously powerful meteor storm. |
| Date: | 2014-04-04 |
| Related: | None |
| NPCs: | NA |
| Scene Runner: | NA |
| Social/Plot: | Plot |
| Players: |
 .. .. |
Honestly, for people with such powerful abilities? This is somewhat routine. A large meteor storm is entering the atmosphere and many of the chunks are large enough that they'll do damage to Metropolis below. Which is why Power Woman and Moon Maiden are in the upper atmosphere. Some meteors are broken up enough that they'll burn up as they plunge below. Others are caught and thrown back into space.
And, yes, the two women are having a bit of fun with the task. Which explains why Moon Maiden has reached out and grabbed hold of a five hundred pound chunk of rock with her lunarkinetc powers and then sent it hurtling towards Karen.
"Power Woman! CATCH!"
Power Woman does her best to take care of Metropolis. The City of Tomorrow has become as much her home as the small northwestern town where she grew up. So when she learned of this incoming meteor shower, she decided to check it out, just in case there might be any of it that could endanger the city and its citizens. When she got up here to the upper atmosphere, she found her friend, Moon Maiden, apparently hanging out and waiting on the same meteor shower.
Laurel, of course, has that unfair advantage of a pretty direct line straight from NASA.
There's definitely no reason not to have some fun while they work on saving the city. Kara catches the hurled boulder handily; despite its tonnage, it doesn't even make her budge or give way in the sky - and then she twists around in place, pirrhouetting in the sky and tossing it back at Laurel. "Moon Maiden, catch!" she teases back, grinning as she uses heat vision to trace out 'stitches' on the boulder, to make it look more like a giant stone baseball.
Moon Maiden does some quick calculations and provides one meteor a bit of spin. It twists off course due to that spin and slams into another meteor and both are smashed into small particles and powder. That done, Laurel has no problem using her powers as a giant catcher's mitt. She snags Karen's thrown meteor in a sparkling silver net. "Got it!" She shouts. This is the biggest of the meteors, to be certain. If it hits Earth it would damage a good part of the city. At the very least. "Who do you think we should give this to?"
"My vote is the Museum of Natural History." Karen offers with a smile, as she zips around, punching several more meteors to tiny bits, to encourage that burning up on atmospheric entry thing. "Second place with me would be the Astrophysics Department at Met U. Or we could give it to NASA. They'd share, wouldn't they?" Because more than just who could take it and make use of it, the question is sharing that wealth, because something like one of these meteros could bring a wealth of information about space, about other worlds, and even potentially new elements. The only one Karen is sure isn't in this one is Kryptonite. And even that she can only say she does't see or sense any; this one is big enough that there are pockets of lead inside, which cloud her vision and could hide almost anything.
"Having one this size intact is rare." Laurel admits. She lets the meteor slowly spin around in her sparkling, lunarkinetic field. "I think most institutions would love to have it. Still, we are over Metropolis so taking it down to the Museum of Natural History seems like the smartest idea. They can work out how to divide it up for study and display with other institutions." She pauses. "Assuming there isn't some sort of government protocol. I honestly don't know how that would work."
"I imagine that the government merely requires that whomever takes possession of something like this shares their findings with them, and then they step in if something dangerous or really interesting is found." That's Kara's impression, and she trusts her own instincts. The mighty Kryptonian woman twists around, scanning the City below only briefly, and then points to a building towards the south-est of its heart. "You go ahead and take it down there. I'll take a sweep of what's left, make sure nothing gets by us that will be dangerous, and then I can join you."
Clearly, Kara wants this to be a team effort, and she can't do as good a job juggling the giant space boulder /and/ clearing the skies, while she knows Laurel can split her lunarkinetic focus better than that. So Kara does another sweep of the heavens and targets the few remaining in the meteor shower that are larger than is strictly safe - they likely would burn up, but they might not.
"Right." Laurel leaves the skies in the capable hands of the Kryptonian woman and flies with the five hundred pound chunk of space rock down towards the ground. She doesn't have the benefit of telescopic vision to guide her, so she makes use of landmarks to lead the way. That means flying low enough that soon there are quite a few photos on the internet showing her gliding along over roooftops, lunarkinetically hauling a meteor along behind her. By the time Karen lands, Laurel's arranged to manuever the meteor into the museum's docking bay.
Once assured by her telescopic vision that the heavens are safe and no threat remains to the City of Tomorrow below, Power Woman dives Earthward and follows her friend, taking a more direct route because she can see where she's going even from so high up in the troposphere. The scarlet-caped heroine lands gently on the steps and makes her way over to help get things out of the way so that Laurel has an easier way to getting the boulder inside and placed safely. She of course poses with Laurel for a few documentary photographs by the Astronomy Department, giving clear evidence of the date and time of the meteor's arrival in Earth's atmosphere, and how it was delivered into their custody. "I trust, folks, that you have a protocol in place for something like this. I do hope you will share, and share alike." the Kryptonian heroine offers.
Then Karen moves over and hugs her friend. "I have to admit, that was fun. Really fun. I'm glad that you were here today, to help. We don't get lots of chances to work together." All too often, they're working in completely different places on completely different problems; such is the nature of super-heroism. But it's so fun not to be so alone. "How have you been?"
Discussions like this aren't to be had near prying eyes. Or prying smartphone cameras. Laurel offers the scientists and musem workers a wave before taking off into the sky - confident that Karen will follow.
"Busy." Laurel admits. "I was tracking down a serial killer in New York City. It turned out to be an android. The roboticist who created it was victim number one. Tony Stark has the pieces now. He and I have a date for next month. Italy. I might let him impress me. I'm not sure yet."
Karen cannot help but laugh out loud at that bit from Laurel. "Well, he is brilliant, which is great. Of course, he's also quite capable of being a big jerk." At least, that's what she's heard and read. Kara can't assume it's all true, but she's betting it has a grain of truth to it. "Sorry about the killer robot. But I'm really glad you were able to find it and stop it. That's really great work, Laurel."
"Not great enough. Too many victims before I figured it out." Laurel says with a soft sigh. "Yes, I know. We can't save them all. I'm aware. That doesn't make it much easier." She stops, coming to a hover. Just high enough that there's no worry of being overhead but not so high that they have to shout over the wind. "I also stopped by a school for metahuman youth in New York. Met with the headmistress. She was… interesting."
"I'm sure you did your best, Laurel. I'm sorry." Karen gives her friend a little hug, but nothing too indulgent. She does understand how that feels. It sucks. "I've heard about that school. I haven't visited myself. I take it the Headmistress was someone gifted?" She imagines teachers at a place like that might well be, and it would fit as to why she'd be so interesting to Laurel. Or, at least one reason why. She knows her friend well enough to know that there are other possible reasons.
"Telepathic." Laurel says, tapping her temple. Hugs are, of course, received and returned. "Very beautiful but I got the sense she was lonely. I don't know. I'll go back and talk to her again in the future, I think. There's something about her…" She shrugs her shoulders. "I don't know."
Kara smiles warmly. "She intrigues you." That's her impression, and it would explain why Laurel wants to go meet this woman again. Not that Karen can blame her at all. "Telepathy would be really handy. Unfortunately, Kryptonian genetics don't lean that way. So I make due." Hence the wry grin that follows. "Nothing yet on our search for the Weather Wizard, by the way."
"I'm sure you'll deal with the heart break of no telepathy using all your other powers." Laurel notes with a wry grin. "And yes, she does intrigue me. Maybe that's it. I'll have to see where it leads." But then, back to business. "Nothing on Weather Wizard on my end, either. My guess is he's gone to ground. Maybe he realizes his last stunt put him on a LOT of radars."
"I do make due with all of my other powers." Not that she asked for them, but Kara enjoys them, and loves to use them. She makes no secret of it. "I think you're probably right. It's frustrating, because I'd really like to nab him, before he hurts more people. But we have to be patient, and work on other cases until we can get a lead on him. Do try to let me know, if you should find anything."
"Even with all our resources, we only have so much we can do. I made contact with a SHIELD agent recently, though. She seems nice. Maybe she can help out. I'll ask her about it. My guess is someone with Weather Wizard's power levels are on their radar." Laurel smiles. "And of course I'll let you know. We're working together on this."
"Oooh. A SHIELD agent. That's most impressive. I haven't had much successful contact with the secret security services." Power Woman responds, with a little shrug. "But if she can help, that would be handy, and might get us a lot closer to Weather Wizard, potentially before he attacks someone else." She smiles warmly at the assurance that Moon Maiden is staying true to their partnership on that case. It's kind of neat, a novel new experience having a 'partner', instead of operating largely as a loner.
"We'll see. I've had good experiences with government agencies but I know they have their secrets." Laurel agrees. She was, after all, one of those secrets for quite some time. "You know, I told my dad about us teaming up the other day and he asked when we planned to reform the All-Star Squadron!"
Karen indulges in a bright, energetic bit of laughter at that. "Wow. The All-Star Squadron. That would be something. I really admire Superman and his compatriots from back then." Naturally. She grins at Laurel. "You know, I actually have a copy of his journal, from back then. It's amazing to read his thoughts from that time." Not that it's written, per se. But that's the best way for others to understand what she sees. "Still, I don't know that we're quite ready for that. Back then, there was something big enough going on to draw them all together to support each other. There hasn't yet been anything quite big enough for that, since the powers came back. Still, it would be awesome."